A December to Remember: Liberty and Saguaro Sweep Arizona's 2023 Titles
Arizona — December 2023
The first weekend of December 2023 delivered two state championships that would go on to shape the next several years of Arizona high school football. Liberty beat Centennial 33-21 to win its first Open Division title, avenging its only regular-season loss in the process. On the same championship weekend, Saguaro completed one of the more improbable runs in recent memory, riding a 4-5 regular season into a 40-20 win over Red Mountain for the 6A crown.
Neither result stayed a standalone story for long. Liberty's Open Division breakthrough became the first chapter of back-to-back titles, with the Lions returning the following year to beat Basha and become the division's first repeat champion. Saguaro's title, meanwhile, was a reminder that regular-season record means little once the Arizona playoffs begin — a lesson that would repeat itself the very next year when Centennial rode a No. 14 seed to the 2024 6A title.
Taken together, the two championships crowned that weekend in December 2023 set a tone that would carry through the following two seasons: dominance from the state's most talented rosters in the Open Division, and chaos everywhere else, where seeding lines meant increasingly little once December arrived.
For a sport where December so often delivers the season's defining moments, the 2023 championship weekend was as good an example as any of just how unpredictable — and how rewarding — Arizona high school football's biggest stage can be.